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In Turkey, President Must Pick With Care

With Turkey's experiment in government led by an Islamic hard-liner at least temporarily at an end, the political spotlight shifted today to the country's canny elder statesman, President Suleyman Demirel.

Under the Constitution, Mr. Demirel must choose a successor to Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, who resigned on Wednesday after pressure from military commanders who asserted that he was leading the country toward fundamentalism. Mr. Erbakan was the first head of an Islamic party to lead Turkey.

Mr. Demirel's choice could have profound effects on the future of Turkey, and today he began meeting with party leaders to weigh his options. The first to emerge from his official residence, Mesut Yilmaz of the center-right Motherland Party, said he had told the President that he was ''ready to take on this responsibility.''

Officially Mr. Demirel's role as President is largely ceremonial, and in theory his choice of a new Prime Minister should be no choice at all. Tradition dictates that he tap Mr. Yilmaz, who in the last election finished second to Mr. Erbakan. If Mr. Yilmaz should prove unable to form a government with a parliamentary majority, the job should then be offered to the third-place finisher, Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller.

In the highly charged climate of today's Turkey, however, the dictates of tradition will probably not weigh too heavily on President Demirel's mind. Instead, he must balance the determination of Islamic politicians, the power of various kingmakers, and the desire of the military for a strictly secular government.

Senior officers have signaled that they will be very unhappy with any government in which Islamic figures take part. One of them hinted to a columnist for the newspaper Milliyet that military would put pressure on such a government just as relentlessly as it did on Mr. Erbakan.

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All three of the country's major political figures are seen as having heavy liabilities. Mr. Erbakan is intolerable to the military, Mrs. Ciller is weighed down by her collaboration with Mr. Erbakan and by allegations of corruption, all of which she has denied, and Mr. Yilmaz is seen in many quarters as an ineffective leader.

All day today, speculation and rumor flooded the airwaves and the restaurants and offices where politicians congregate. Some suggested that President Demirel might choose someone other than the obvious candidates, hoping to send Turkish politics in a new direction. President Demirel himself did not appear in public or issue any statement, but he did not have to. His name was on everyone's lips, and few doubted that although his task is not easy, he must be relishing it.

If modern Turkey has a political patriarch, it is certainly Mr. Demirel. Portly, jowly and quintessentially pragmatic, he is universally known as ''baba,'' or father. He has been Prime Minister seven times, more than anyone else in Turkish history. This week, however, he is faced with a task as weighty as any he has confronted in his long career.

''What he's doing now is much more fun than being Prime Minister,'' said a Government official who has known Mr. Demirel for years. ''I'm sure he's having fun.''